In defense of Pacioli

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Accounting Historians Journal
Volume 38, Number 2
December 2011
pp. 105-124
Alan Sangster
MIDDLESEX UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL
Greg N. Stoner
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
and
Patricia McCarthy
OPEN UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL
IN DEFENSE OF PACIOLI
Abstract: This paper responds to Basil Yamey’s paper in the December 2010 issue of this journal. In that paper, Professor Yamey contradicts some of the points made in our 2008 paper, also in this journal, in which we conclude that Pacioli’s Summa de Arithmetica, Geome­tria, Proportioni et Proportionalita (1494) was written primarily for merchants and their sons. He does so by attempting to explain why Pacioli’s exposition of double-entry bookkeeping, De Computis et Scripturis, was neither an effective reference text for merchants nor a satisfactory school text for their sons. We are unconvinced by Profes­sor Yamey’s argument and counter it in this paper by demonstrating that, if anything, Pacoli’s bookkeeping treatise was even more fit-for-purpose than we previously indicated.
INTRODUCTION
We welcome the commentary by Professor Basil Yamey [2010] on our paper [Sangster et al., 2008], in which we con­cluded that the Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita (Summa) of Luca Pacioli [1494] was written primarily for merchants and their sons. We are grateful for this opportunity to revisit our work with a new purpose, adding evidence to our previous arguments and, not least, to correct at least one error in our paper that has troubled us since it ap­peared in print.
Some of Professor Yamey’s comments focus on our paper and some on De Computis et Scripturis (De Scripturis), Pacioli’s treatise on double-entry bookkeeping (DEB). We shall endeavor to address both sets of comments. First, however, we must con­sider Yamey’s overall conclusion and the method by which he attempts to justify reaching it.
Yamey states that he is not persuaded by our conclusion that Summa was written for merchants and their sons. To support this position, he focuses solely upon consideration of De Scrip­turis [Yamey, 2010, p. 146, footnote 1] to demonstrate that De